Weekend Watch Lists: Top 10 Rolex Submariner References

It’s weekend! We decided to come up with some easy-to-digest content for the weekend, as you’ve probably been doing enough reading all week. From now on, we will publish our Weekend Watch Lists feature every weekend, to show you overviews with information about the consumer watch market. Our overviews are based on data from on-line watch consumers. Per list we will indicate the countries from which we used the data, as this will vary to keep it interesting. It will be interesting to see how much taste in watches can differ per country and continent. Data is retrieved from Chronolytics.ch, watch market research company that operates under the flag of Ebner Verlag (publishing house of magazines like WatchTime, Uhren Magazine, Chronos etc.).

Last week, we showed you a Top 10 of divers watches. It did raise some questions, as some of the watches were not typical diving watches. In order to be selected as a divers watch, we asked Chronolytics to give us overviews of watches with a water resistance of 200 meters (and more). Some watches that are not marketed or meant as divers watches, met this requirement and ended up in the list.

Also, note that the results are not (only) based on search queries. There is a more complex methodology behind this data mining, in order to give the best representation of the demand for watches out there.

In any case, the most popular divers watch was (of course) the Rolex Submariner. The Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean came in as close second. If we would add all requests for Omega Seamaster watches in general (including the other Seamaster collections), there is a fair chance that there is even more demand for those. However, that’s perhaps something for next time.

This weekend, we are showing you the Top 10 of Rolex Submariner references for the USA and Europe. As you know, the Rolex Submariner goes back long time (1954, the design even to 1953) and not long ago we gave you a run-down on the most important facts and figures on this Rolex model (click here). We thought it would be nice to show you the Top 10 Rolex Submariner references, from old to new. The two first overviews show you the Top 10 Rolex Submariner watches from the USA and Europe, including current reference numbers as well as discontinued reference numbers. Below these two overviews you’ll see again overviews for the USA and Europe, showing you the Top 10 vintage Rolex Submariner watches. We asked to show the demand for the Rolex Submariner produced before 1990, to get this vintage overview. Although to some 1990 is still a bit ‘young’, we thought that 25 years old is enough to consider something vintage regarding wristwatches.

Top 10 Rolex Submariner references / watches

Top 10 vintage Rolex Submariner references / watches

Although you can see quite a mix between new and vintage in the Top 10 Rolex Submariner references above, we thought it would be a good idea to also ask for the demand for vintage Rolex Submariner watches. As written above, we used production year 1990 as the limit for this list. The reference 16610 (both number 1 in the Top 10 Rolex Submariner overviews above, for the demand from the USA as well as from Europe) was made since 1988, just for your information. However, will it ‘perform’ still as good when the share-of-voice of that reference 16610 has become smaller? Let’s see.

The Rolex Submariner reference 16610 can’t be found in the Top 10 overview based on the demand from the USA, and on a rank #10 in Europe. When on-line watch consumers are looking for Rolex Submariner models that were made before 1990, there are other models that get more attention. In both USA and Europe, the vintage Rolex Submariner 5513 is positioned nr.1, where the 5512 is positioned #3 in the USA and #4 in Europe (click here for our article on the Rolex Submariner 5512 vs 5513).

Perhaps an open door, but we were told that even though a reference 5512 or 5514 are more sought-after by collectors, or perhaps higher on their wish list is a better explanation, the Rolex Submariner reference 5513 gets a higher share-of-voice in these overviews as it is more attractively priced.

The 16610 is more popular than the 116610 – wonder if the maxi case and dial have anything to do with it. Maybe Rolex already know this which is why the new day-date models at Baselworld this year have smaller sizes.

Justin

Not many people took to the bloated case and lugs of the 116610 from what I read. And same for me too. I love the 16610, which is a classic to me.